Having lived so many years in Alberta, winter seems incomplete to me without a little snow.  So, like a child, I eagerly await the first snowfall of the season.  I can feel the silence even before I see the snow, and I rush to the window in the morning to discover a world blanketed in white.  I always marvel at the way the world has been made clean and new; almost unrecognizable as it glistens in the morning sun.  This is the magic of winter… and to me it symbolizes a chance to start anew.  All mistakes of the past have been erased, and the future awaits like a blank canvas before the first strokes of a brush.  To me, this feels like perfect timing for the start of a new year.

Early Morning Snowfall
By Krista Longeway

I awake to a world blanketed in silence
As the snowflakes gently fall from the sky.
Each snowflake performing a graceful dance
Then coming to rest on the trees nearby.

I venture outside, though its cold out there
And breaking the silence I sigh aloud.
My warm breath forming crystals in the air
then gently drifting away as a cloud.

As if seeing the world for the first time,
I gaze in wonder at the beauty of things.
Now sparkling in the winter sunshine,
A gift that only a fresh snowfall brings.

Our everyday world has now been transformed
To a magical, glistening land of white.
Yesterday’s footsteps erased by the storm,
All the world made new again overnight.